Roman Polanski is a free man - officials in Switzerland have thrown out a request to extradite him to the U.S. for sentencing on a child-sex charge.
The Pianist director has been under house arrest at a luxury chalet in Gstaad since he was seized in Zurich last September en route to a film festival.
U.S. authorities demanded the film-maker be returned to the States to face sentencing for having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977. He pleaded guilty to the offence but fled to Europe in 1978 before facing a court.
But Swiss officials announced on Monday that the extradition has now been turned down - because they cannot rule out the possibility that there is a "fault" in the request.
In a statement, a spokesman for the Swiss Justice Ministry says, "The reason for the decision lies in the fact that it was not possible to exclude with the necessary certainty a fault in the U.S. extraditionary (sic) request."
Polanski is expected to return to his family home in France.
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